Under a Charm Volume Iii Part 4

Resting her head on her hand, she meditated long and sadly. The accounts which had reached her of the late occurrences still agitated and engrossed her mind. This woman, whose constant rule it was to take her stand on the domain of facts, and adroitly to shape her plans in accordance with them, found herself for once unable to meet the difficulties before her. So all had been in vain! The unsparing rigour with which she had torn the veil from her niece's mind, in order to arm the girl against a growing pa.s.sion; the absolute separation lasting through long months; the late interview at Rakowicz--all had been in vain! The sight of Waldemar in peril had sufficed in one single instant to scatter all other considerations to the wind. Soon after her arrival, Wanda had told her aunt all that had happened. The young Countess was too proud, too completely under the bias of national prejudices, not to seek at once to clear herself from any suspicion of what the Princess called 'treason.' She declared to this stern judge that she had sent no warning, had betrayed no trust; that only at the last moment, when all secrets connected with the station were beyond concealment, had she stepped forward and interfered. How she had acted, what she had done to save Waldemar, she was equally unable to conceal; the wound on her arm was there to bear evidence against her.

The entrance of her son roused the Princess from all the tormenting thoughts which were racking her brain. She knew whence he came. Pawlick had informed her that this morning, for the third time, Herr Nordeck had attempted to gain admittance to the Countess Morynska, and that on this occasion he had obtained what he sought. Waldemar approached slowly, until he stood opposite his mother.

"You come from Wanda?" said she.

"Yes."

The Princess looked up in his face, which at this moment was clearly lighted up by a blaze of the fitful fire. There were lines of pain in it--of pain, bitter but repressed.

"So you forced an entrance in spite of her repeated denial? But what, indeed, could _you_ fail to accomplis.h.!.+ Well, the interview must have convinced you that it was no prohibition of mine which closed Wanda's door, as you so positively a.s.sumed. It was her own wish not to see you, a wish you have lightly enough regarded."

"After what Wanda risked on my behalf the day before yesterday, I had at least the right to see and speak to her. It was necessary for me to speak to her. Oh, do not be afraid!" he went on with rising bitterness, as the Princess was about to interrupt him. "Your niece has fully justified your expectations, and has done all that lay in her power to rob me of hope. She believes, no doubt, that she is prompted by her own will alone, while, in reality, she is blindly submitting to be led by yours. Those were your words, your views, which I have just had expounded to me by her mouth. If left to herself, I should perhaps have succeeded, have gained my end by persistent effort, as I succeeded in getting speech of her; but I lost sight of the fact that for the last forty-eight hours she has been exclusively under your influence. You have represented that promise which you persuaded her into giving my brother, which you forced from her when little more than a child, as an irrevocable vow, to break which were mortal sin. You have so baited her with your national prejudices ..."

"Waldemar!" exclaimed his mother, indignantly.

"With the prejudice," he repeated, emphatically, "that it would be treason to her family and to her people, if she were to consent to listen to me, because it happens that I am a German, and that circ.u.mstances have forced me into an att.i.tude of hostility towards your party. Well, you have attained your object. She would rather die now than lift a hand to free herself, or give me leave to do it for her; and for this I have to thank you, and you alone."

"I certainly reminded Wanda of her duty," replied the Princess, coldly.

"My words were, however, hardly needed. Reflection had brought her to her senses, and I trust this may now be the case with you. Ever since the day on which you openly declared yourself my enemy, I have known that your old boyish fancy was not extinct, but that it had, on the contrary, developed into a pa.s.sion with you. In what measure this pa.s.sion was returned, I only learned yesterday. It would be useless to reproach you with what has happened. No recrimination can undo it now, but you must feel that you owe it both to yourself and to Leo to consent to an absolute separation. Wanda sees this and agrees to it.

You must submit also."

"Must I?" asked Waldemar. "You know, mother, that submission is not my forte, especially where all the happiness of my life is at stake."

The Princess looked up with an expression of surprise and alarm. "What do you mean? Would you wish to rob your brother of his betrothed, after robbing him of her love?"

"That Leo never possessed. Wanda did not know her own heart when she yielded to his affection for her, to her father's wish and yours, and to the family plans. It is I who possess her love, and now that I have this certainty, I shall know how to defend my own."

"You take a high tone, Waldemar," said the Princess, almost scornfully.

"Have you reflected as to what answer your brother will be likely to make to such a claim on your part?"

"If my betrothed declared to me that she had given her love to another, I would set her free, absolutely, unconditionally, no matter what I might suffer through it," replied the young man, steadily. "Leo, if I know him, is not the man to do this. He will be beside himself with rage, will distract Wanda with his jealousy, and will inflict on us a series of violent scenes."

"Are you the one to prescribe moderation, you who have done him the deadliest injury?" returned his mother. "True, Leo is far away, fighting in his people's sacred cause, hourly risking his life, and little dreaming the while that his brother, behind his back ..."

She stopped, for Waldemar's hand was laid firmly on hers. "Mother,"

he said, in a voice which acted as a warning to the Princess--she knew that with him this low constrained tone always preceded an outbreak--"no more of this. You do not believe in these imputations yourself. You know better than any one how Wanda and I have struggled against this pa.s.sion--know what a moment it was which unsealed our lips. Behind Leo's back! In my room lies the letter which I was writing to him before I went to Wanda. My interview with her need make no change in it. He must be told that the word 'love' has been spoken between us. We could neither of us endure to conceal it from him. I intended to give you the letter. You alone have positive information as to where Leo is now to be found, and you can provide for its reaching him in safety."

"On no account," cried the Princess, hastily. "I know my son's hot blood too well to impose such torture on him. To remain at a distance, possibly for months, a prey to the keenest jealousy, conscious that he is here threatened in that which he holds most dear--such a trial is beyond his strength. And yet he must persevere, must remain at his post until all is decided. No, no, that is not to be thought of. I have Wanda's word that she will be silent, and you must give me a promise too. She returns to Rakowicz to-day, and, so soon as she has quite recovered, will go to our relations in M----, to stay there until Leo has come back and can defend his rights in person."

"I am aware of it; she told me so herself," replied Waldemar, gloomily.

"It seems she cannot put miles enough between us now. All that love, that desperation could suggest, I tried with her--in vain. She met me always with the same unalterable 'no.' Be it so, then, until Leo's return. Perhaps you are right; it will be better that we should settle this matter face to face. For myself, I should certainly prefer it. I am ready to meet him at any moment; what may betide, when we do come together, is another and a very different question!"

The Princess rose, and went up to her son. "Waldemar, give up these senseless hopes. I tell you, Wanda would never be yours, even were she free. The obstacles between you are too many, too insurmountable. You are mistaken if you reckon on any change of mind in her. What you term national prejudice is her very life's blood, the food on which she has been nourished since her earliest youth; she cannot renounce it, without renouncing life itself. Even though she love you, the daughter of the Morynskis, the betrothed of Prince Baratowski, knows what duty and honour require of her; and did she not know it, we are there to remind her--I, her father, above all Leo himself."

A well-nigh contemptuous smile played about the young man's lips, as he replied, "Do you really imagine that one of you could hinder me if I had Wanda's consent? That she should refuse it me, that she should forbid me to fight on her side, and to win her--there's the sting which nearly overcame me just now. But, no matter! A man who, like myself, has never in his life known what love is, and who suddenly sees such felicity before him, does not forego and put it from him so easily. The prize is too high for me to yield it up without a struggle. Where I have all to win, I may stake all, and, were the obstacles between us tenfold more formidable, Wanda should still be mine!"

There was an indomitable energy in the words. The red firelight from the hearth shone up into Waldemar's face, which at this moment looked as though cast in bronze. Once again the Princess was fain to recognise the fact that it was her son who stood before her with that ominous blue mark on his brow, with the look and bearing 'of his mother herself.' Hitherto she had sought in vain to account for the wonderful, the incredible circ.u.mstance that Waldemar--cold, gloomy, repellant Waldemar--could be preferred to her Leo; that he should have triumphed over his handsome, chivalrous brother in the matter of a woman's love,--but now, in this moment, she understood it all.

"Have you forgotten who is your rival?" she asked, with grave emphasis.

"Brother against brother! Shall I look on at a hostile, perhaps a fatal encounter between my sons? Do you neither of you heed a mother's anguish?"

"Your sons!" repeated Waldemar. "If a mother's anguish, a mother's fondness here come in question, the words can only apply to one son.

You cannot forgive me for disturbing your darling's happiness, and I know a solution of the problem which would cost you but few tears. Make your mind easy. What I can do to prevent a catastrophe, I will do. Take care that Leo does not make it impossible for me to think of him as a brother. Your influence over him is unlimited, he will listen to you. I have learned to place a restraint on myself, as you are aware; but there are bounds even to my self-control. Should Leo drive me beyond these bounds, I will answer for nothing. He does not show a very nice regard for the honour of others, when he thinks himself injured in any way."

They were interrupted. A servant brought word to his master that a noncommissioned officer, belonging to the detachment which had pa.s.sed through Wilicza on the previous day, was below and urgent in his entreaty to be allowed to see Herr Nordeck at once. Waldemar went out.

During the last few days he had grown accustomed to these disturbing calls upon him, coming always at the moment when he was least disposed to meet them.

The sergeant announced was waiting in the anteroom. He brought a polite message and a request from the commanding officer. The detachment had no sooner arrived at its new post than it had been obliged to proceed to action. There had been serious fighting during the night; it had ended in the discomfiture of the insurgents, who had fled in the greatest disorder, hotly pursued by the victors. Some of the fugitives had taken refuge on this side the frontier; they had been arrested and disarmed by a body of patrols, and were now to be sent under escort to L----. Among them, however, were a few so seriously wounded that it was feared they would not be able to bear the transport. The captain begged that the sick might, for the present, be lodged at Wilicza, which lay within easy reach. The ambulance was now waiting in the village below.

Waldemar was ready on the instant to comply with the demand upon him, and at once ordered the necessary arrangements to be made at the manor-farm for the reception of the wounded men. He went over himself in company of the sergeant.

The Princess remained alone. She had not heard the news, nor taken any notice of the message which had summoned her son away. Her mind was busy with far other thoughts.

What would come now? This question arose ever anew before her, like a menacing spectre which was not to be laid. The Princess knew her sons well enough to feel what might be expected, were they to meet as enemies--and deadly enemies they would a.s.suredly be from the moment Leo discovered the truth; Leo, whose jealousy had at the first vague suspicion blazed forth so hotly that it had almost seduced him from his duty--should he now learn that Waldemar had indeed robbed him of the love of his betrothed--should Waldemar's merely external calm give way and his native fierceness break out again with its old violence.... The mother shuddered, recoiling from the abyss which seemed to open out before her mental vision. She knew she should be powerless then, even with her youngest-born--that in this matter her influence with him had been exerted to the uttermost. Waldemar and Leo had each their father's blood in their veins, and however great the contrast between Nordeck and Prince Baratowski may have been, in one thing they resembled each other--in their incapability of bridling their pa.s.sions when once fully aroused.

The door of the adjoining room was opened. Perhaps it was Waldemar coming back--he had been called away in the midst of their conversation; but the step was more rapid, less steady than his. There came a rustle in the portieres, they were hastily pulled back, and with a cry of fear and joy the Princess started from her seat.

"Leo, you here!"

Prince Baratowski was in his mother's arms. He returned her embrace, but he had no word of greeting for her. Silently and hastily he pressed her to him, but his manner betrayed no gladness at the meeting.

"Whence do you come?" she asked, reflection, and with it anxiety, quickly regaining the upper hand. "So suddenly, so unexpectedly! And how could you be so imprudent as to venture up to the Castle in broad daylight? You must know that you are liable to be arrested! Patrols are out all over the country. Why did you not wait till dusk?"

Leo raised himself from her arms. "I have waited long enough. I left yesterday evening; all night I have been on the rack--it was impossible to pa.s.s the frontier. I had to lie in hiding. At last, at daybreak I managed to cross and to reach the Wilicza woods, but it was hard work to get to the Castle."

He panted this out in agitated, broken phrases. His mother noticed now how pale and troubled he looked. She drew him down on to a seat, almost by force.

"Rest; you are exhausted by the effort and the risk. What madness to hazard life and freedom for the sake of just seeing us again! You must have known that our anxiety on your account would more than counterbalance our joy. I cannot understand how Bronislaus could let you leave. There must be fighting going on all round you."

"No, no," said Leo, hastily. "Nothing will be done for the next four and twenty hours. We have exact information as to the enemy's position.

The day after to-morrow--to-morrow, perhaps--may be decisive, but till then all will be quiet. If there were fighting on hand, I should not be here; as it was, I could not keep away from Wilicza, even though my coming should cost me my life or my freedom."

The Princess looked at him uneasily. "Leo, your uncle has given you leave of absence?" she asked suddenly, seized, as it were, by some vague dread.

"Yes, yes," replied the young Prince, keeping his eyes averted from his mother's face. "I tell you all has been foreseen and arranged. I am posted with my detachment in the woods about A----, in an excellent position, well covered. My adjutant has the command until I return."

"And Bronislaus?"

"My uncle has a.s.sembled the main forces at W----, quite close to the border. I cover his rear with my troops. But now, mother, ask me no more questions. Where is Waldemar?"

"Your brother?" said the Princess, at once surprised and alarmed, for she began to divine the secret connection of events. "Can it be that you come on his account?"

"I come to seek Waldemar," Leo broke out with stormy vehemence, "Waldemar and no one else. He is not at the Castle, Pawlick says, but Wanda is here. So he really did bring her over to Wilicza like a captured prey, like a chattel of his own--and she allowed it to be! But I will show him to whom she belongs. I will show him--and her too."

"For G.o.d's sake, tell me--you have heard ..."

"What happened at the border-station? Yes, I have heard it. Osiecki's men joined me yesterday. They brought me word of what they had seen.

Perhaps you understand now why I came over to Wilicza at any risk?"

"This was what I feared!" said the Princess, under her breath.